Real fleets share real-world eLCV experiences

There can be a chasm between theory and practice when it comes to operating electric light commercial vehicles.

The good news is that there is no need to reinvent the wheel. Decision makers at major fleets are happy to share their experiences and advice as they pursue the challenge of maintaining operational efficiency, controlling costs and delivering their bold corporate decarbonisation agendas.

Here, four fleet managers who are each responsible for thousands of commercial vehicles, from public utilities to roadside rescue and rental, share their wisdom of going electric.

What should fleet managers do first?

“Just start, because you don’t actually start learning everything you need to know, until you start the journey,” says Lorna McAtear, head of fleet, National Grid. “If you’re worrying that you don’t know it all, don’t. None of us can possibly know everything at the moment. It is too new a technological step.”

“It’s all about data,” says Elaine Pringle, fleet manager, Scottish Water. “Take the time to analyse your data and identify the low-hanging fruit – the easiest vehicles to electrify.”

Use the data to tell the story. Drivers may think they are driving hundreds of kilometres a day, she adds, but data frequently shows mileages are much shorter and well within range of a battery charge.

“And give people training so the first time somebody drives an EV they know, for example, how to charge it,” she says.

“Win the hearts and minds of drivers,” says Sarah Gray, head of ZEV Strategy & Development, Dawson Group. Within every fleet there will be EV enthusiasts, she adds, so engage them in your trials and half your battle is won. But give an EV to someone who thinks it will fail, and it will fail.

“Electrification is a business change, so no one individual in any company should feel it is their problem alone to solve,” says Duncan Webb, fleet director, The AA. “Your business has to change.”

How capable are eLCVs of fulfilling their operational requirements?

“It’s still early technology,” says McAtear (pictured above), “so focus on what you can buy now that can do what you need. “And when you are trialling vehicles, do it in winter because it only gets better from there.”

With official WLTP ranges halving when carrying a heavy payload in cold winter conditions, an eLCV that works in winter will work all year round. McAtear set out a 10-year strategy, mapping out the vehicles that National Grid can transition to battery power when they are due for replacement cycle, and extending the holding periods of other vehicles for which a suitable replacement will arrive later.

“But I knew that I wasn’t even going to touch my 4×4 pickups until 2027,” she says.

“We started with people who drive the smallest number of miles, but there was a point where we had converted 14% of the fleet, but only 7% of the mileage,” says Abby Chicken, Head of Sustainability, Openreach. For vehicles that covered longer ranges, Openreach looked at reducing weight by carrying fewer tools and equipment – “We found out that some of our vehicles are carrying a winch which they only use one once a year,” says Chicken – and the company also deployed route optimization and AI tools to plan the shortest journeys.

“Whatever fuel you use, the more efficiently and the more leanly your vehicle fleet drives, the better it is for business.”

“Towing has probably been the biggest limitation for us, and that is just about getting there now,” says Webb. “Because if we do have to recover your vehicle, we don’t want to deploy another vehicle to tow. The trouble is, we now have to have a van that’s a bit bigger, and doesn’t fit in all car parks.”

How have you solved payment for recharging?

“You need to find a charge card that can be used in multiple different networks,” says Gray (pictured above). “And you also need a home charging payment solution, because no driver wants to be paying high costs for recharging their vehicle at home. There are lots of different strategic partnerships where you can work with organisations to overcome some of these barriers.”

The next challenge is to consolidate all charging expenditure, from home, depot and public charging, into meaningful management information.

“We’re looking to build that single data point and work with those APIs to bring all of this information from all of these different sources, so you can track a single vehicle and a single driver through all these different points of charging contact, and be able to see it in a single location,” says Gray.

“We are a predominantly home parking fleet, so our engineers take their vans home, parking wherever they live,” says Chicken. “So, our first action was to install charging points wherever we can – if an engineer has private parking, we will install a charging point.”

But not every driver has off-street parking, so Openreach then investigates whether the driver could park elsewhere overnight, such as at one of the company’s buildings.

The firm has also forged partnerships with other fleets, such as First Bus, to share their depot charging facilities when they are available.

“Finding a business with the inverse profile to your charging profile, so you can charge when they’re not, is brilliant,” says Chicken. “And then we look at using some level of the public network. There is no such thing as a silver bullet, but it’s been described to me as ‘silver buckshot’, one great big blast with lots of little pellets, and hopefully they will deal with the problem.”

About 80% of Scottish Water’s vehicles go home overnight, so home charging is the company’s preferred option if it’s possible, although it is also building its own network of charging infrastructure. “We’ve installed about 300 charging points across 200 of our sites – we’re fortunate that our staff are productive and working when they visit our sites,” said Pringle.

And if drivers do need to top up their vehicles, it’s important that it is as easy as possible to access as many networks as possible with a single charge card, said Pringle.

How have you increased power capacity at a depot?

“We’ve got 13 depots, and at our largest in Milton Keynes we didn’t have the energy capacity for more than about six charge points,” says Gray. “So, we’ve created a kind of micro-grid clean energy station. It’s a massive carport with about 200 solar panels, alongside 300kW battery storage.”

By generating and storing its own power, Dawson Group can now install 34 chargers. “The investment is very expensive, but it’s the future. There’s no going back,” says Gray.

“Talk to your DNO, and find out when and where it has planned upgrades [to the local grid],” says McAtear. Working with DNOs gives them advance warning of future power demand, and these businesses can then plan their own upgrades to local cables and substations.

“Then put a 10-year plan together, setting out what you want to do today, but also what you want to do in 10 years’ time. You can phase infrastructure investment,” she says.

McAtear uses the woodwork terminology ‘measure twice, cut once’ to avoid duplicated costs, such as civil engineering of digging up depots and car parks.

“Cut the concrete once, put the conduits in once. You can always upgrade the capacity later,” she says.

How are you controlling the costs of electrification?

One of the unfortunate ironies of electrification is that fleets typically transition their lowest mileage vehicles first, missing out on the cost savings of electricity over diesel, says Pringle, emphasising the importance of maximising low cost home charging opportunities.

“Electric vans are more expensive, and their residual values are a little bit tested at the moment, so we’re having to run them slightly longer to get the monthly cost down. We believe the maintenance costs are also going to be less than diesel, but we’ve not factored that in yet because it’s unknown,” she says.